The Mirror and the Light

The suggestion is so mild it makes him laugh. ‘Let it go,’ he says. ‘If France gets his hopes up, so much the sweeter. He would like to see me dismissed, and the king served by boys and fools.’

‘Which are we?’ Wriothesley says.

‘Neither, you are the chosen ones. Be quiet and hear my news, you will be better for it. You know ever since I have been Master Secretary I have tried to be with the king’s person – but I am always wanted at Westminster – so you know what my life has been.’

Those days that roll from dawn to dawn. For lack of sleep my head doth ache … ‘With the king’s permission, I am going to divide my duties. I have broached it with him before, but the time is now.’

Mr Wriothesley offers to interrupt, but he continues. ‘You will divide the task. Each of you will be Master Secretary. You will split your time so that one of you is in Westminster, the other with the king. I will make machinery, so that your work passes perfectly from hand to hand.’

‘A prodigy of nature,’ Rafe says. He is astonished. ‘Two bodies with one head.’

‘One awake and one asleep,’ Wriothesley says.

‘You will both be knights. You will both be raised to the council. When Parliament meets, you will sit in the Commons, and I in the Lords.’ He slaps his hands on their shoulders. ‘You know what I have made this office, by God’s grace and the king’s. Nothing eludes it. Nothing lies beyond it. Everything starts with you. And with you, everything stops.’

He sits down. ‘Now, also –’

‘There is more?’

He holds up a hand. Sudden pleasure afflicts like sudden pain, and leaves you dizzy, numb. At such times in your life, if ever you see such times – if fortune favours you, as fortune favours the brave – you lose for a moment a sense of the firm boundaries of yourself, and become light as air. ‘I am to have Oxford’s post, Chief of the Household, Lord Great Chamberlain. His son keeps his peerage, as is natural, but as poor Essex had no heir direct, I am to have his title.’

He had thought the sands of time were running out: running through the cracks in the shining bowl of possibility he holds in his hands. ‘Now all is mended,’ he says.

Call-Me flushes. ‘I congratulate you, sir, from the bottom of my heart.’

He says, ‘The king explained to me how I was an aspect of his glory. He said, “It is not given to every ruler to look past a man’s provenance to his capacities. God gave you talents, Cromwell. And he caused you to be born at such a time and place that you could use them in my service.”’

‘And you kept your countenance?’ Rafe says.

‘I did, so please keep yours. He is right to congratulate himself. He thinks of the laws passed and the money made. If I were a prince and I had Cromwell, I would think myself Heaven’s elect.’

‘I wonder why now,’ Call-Me says. ‘In justice he might have done it long ago. But he knows it will give much offence.’

‘Not as much offence, as it gives delight,’ Rafe says. ‘Tell the household. Send to Mr Richard. Get Gregory. By God! Will Gregory be called Lord Gregory now? Will he have the title?’

Below, a roar goes up. Thomas Avery shoots in, embraces him. ‘Sir, they will all expect some increase in their wages.’

‘That is fitting, as they will be serving an earl.’

The room fills up with his people, faces shining. He draws Avery aside. ‘You remember what I told you? About my money abroad?’

Avery is surprised. ‘I do, sir.’

‘So you know what to do?’

The boy frowns. ‘Forgive me, but your lordship is talking as if your fortunes were reversed. As if you had suffered a blow of fate, instead of great promotion and honour.’

‘Find my daughter,’ he says. ‘Open a channel to her, so she can have funds.’

She can use my money, he thinks, though not my love.

‘When I left the king –’ he says. He breaks off. Truth is, he had stood on the threshold and thought, those I want to tell are dead. I want to tell my good master Frescobaldi, and my friends in his kitchen. I want to tell the boy who, as I walked upstairs to the counting house, was scrubbing the stairs. I want to tell Anselma, and my wife and children, and the girl in Rome who gave me my knife. I want to sing Scaramella: Scaramella to the war is gone, bomboretta, bomboro. I want to tell Wolsey, and get his blessing. I want to tell Walter, and see his face. News will travel to Putney: Put-an-edge-on-it has been made an earl! He wants to tell the eel boy; he wishes he were alive, so he could go down there, dig him out of his drinking den, and pound it into his skull.

At Austin Friars, the watchdogs get an extra bone. The leopard an extra carcass. Anthony the jester goes about the house, his face solemn, ringing his silver bells.

On a fine spring day, his new style is proclaimed. The new secretaries are at work. Sir Call-Me-Risley reads the patents of creation that make him an earl. Sir Rafe Sadler proclaims him Lord Chamberlain.